Librarians as critical friends: Developing a sustainable peer observation process

Abstract

Librarians at the University of Washington- Bothell and Cascadia College Campus Library engage in information literacy instruction offered in targeted courses across the curriculum. A focus of these targeted courses is multiple sections of 100-level college introduction and research writing. Most classroom instruction happens by a single librarian in front of a group of students and a faculty member. With approximately 15 librarians engaging in an average of 10 to 12 instruction workshops each academic quarter, our instruction program is robust and dynamic but lacks a built-in mechanism for observation and feedback.